Rioting in Ferguson, Missouri has generated more overall debates about race relations in America.

There were two such debates on the 8/20/14 edition of “Midpoint” on the NewsMaxTV network, and members of the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network were there to help dispel the sour message perpetrated by the left that virtually no progress has helped equal the playing field for blacks here in America and that a victim mentality is not hurting opportunity.

In a debate with Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, in which Price echoed the radical notion that America is still a “cesspool” of racism, Project 21 member Joe Hicks replied that “to talk about a cesspool of oppression or racism in America today is a caricature — that’s not what America is.”

Joe added: “To claim that blacks are victims… that’s the problem — that blacks want to continue to narrative of victimization. And most people scratch their heads and go ‘what the hell are they talking about?’”

When Price began making claims that inherent racism in American society is keeping the black community from earning equal pay or getting comparable loans to whites, Joe pointed out:

Would you be content with earning 60 percent less that a white colleague?… Would you think any black American who has any awareness around them would tolerate that?… We hear these kind of… racial talking points constantly. And, at every point, you’ve got to take each of those… and ask why. If the answer is not that it’s raw, naked racism — as I’m hearing you alleging — then there must be other undercutting factors that contributed to that. But people don’t generally want to go to that level of sophistication to ask these questions. And we see that taking place in the streets of Missouri.

Don’t miss it, about three minutes into the segment, when host Ed Berliner learns that Joe — now a staunch conservative — was once a “gun-toting black nationalist.”

After just a few minutes into the other debate, Project 21 member Wayne Dupree seemed to have his opponent agreeing with him when it came to those who want to be seen as leaders of black America!

Wayne debated Trevor Lee Hardin of People of African Descent in America about the current state of race in America in general and black progress in particular. Wayne came out swinging against a pessimistic Hardin, saying “things are different that they were in the 60s.” The problem, as Wayne explained, is that “big government programs [are] still out there to carry people” and that so-called black leaders are always playing the victimization card and trying to convince people “you have to look to the government… [as your] savior.”

In the end, after hammering away at so-called black leaders Wayne insisted are “in it for themselves” and that the black community should have rid themselves of these millstones long ago because they “always had a chance,” even Hardin was taking Wayne’s position. They appeared to agree that black Americans — if they must have a leader at all — must find people different from the victimizers who now claim to represent them.